1) “Happy’s Place” season-finale, 8 p.m., NBC. This show has ts flaws, due to dumbing down Gabby and Isabella. But it has improved, has been renewed and tonight focuses on two of its best characters, Bobbie and Emmett. Some people push for a romance … which makes sense: The actors (Reba McEntire and Rex Linn, shown here in a previous episode) have been a real-life couple for years. Read more…
1) Basketball. The college tournament gobbles up CBS’ line-up. Today and Friday, that wipes out three soap operas (including the new “Beyond the Gates”) plus, at night, comedies, mysteries and cops. The soaps will be back next week, but the Thursday/Friday primetime shows are off for two weeks. Read more…
As the college basketball tournament begins, we can meet varied places.
There’s Kansas, which is a state, and Bryant, which is a Gumbel. There’s Liberty, which is a concept, and Auburn, which is a color. There’s Wofford (shown here) and Lipscomb and McNeese and more.
That’s the egalitarian notion of the NCAA tourney. It has spots for Texas, with 53,000 students, and Wofford, with 1,600. It has Yale, which has provided five American presidents, and others which haven’t even had an Undersecretary of Transportation. Read more…
1) “Opry 100,” 8-11 p.m., NBC and Peacock. The Grand Ole Opry turns 100 on Nov. 28. Now, a tad early, Blake Shelton hosts a live mega-concert. Performers include Carrie Underwood, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Clint Black, Reba McEntire, Brad Paisley, Kelsea Ballerini (shown here), Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Jelly Roll, Luke Combs and more. Read more…
There really is good news (occasionally) in the TV world.
Now we have fresh examples: “Ted Lasso” is returning … “Dark Winds” is prospering … And natural-world documentaries keep getting better. Details: Read more…
(Here, from the start, is the book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” I’ll continue to post new chapters separately under “Stories.” After that, however, I’ll move each to its spot here.
This is Section One – “The Good Old Days (sometimes)” – and Chapter One.
To see how far TV has come, let’s step back a bit.
We’ll go to 1952 in Clintonville, a Wisconsin town of 4,600, known for big, tough trucks and (back then) big, tough football players.
I’m in the living room with my sister, our parents, a grandmother and a grandfather. Stationed a reasonable distance from the TV set, we are watching … well, a man playing records.
The man says what record he’s playing and starts it. Sometimes, the camera shows the record going around; sometimes it shows the man watching the record go around. Read more…
(This is the latest chapter of a book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” If you scroll up one, you’ll see all of the chapters so far, including this one, in their places in the book.)
For 30 years, a fourth TV network seemed like mere myth.
That was after the death of DuMont and before the birth of Fox. There were several tries, all imploding quickly.
One such fizzle (a 1967 latenight show led by Bill Dana, shown here) was declared by Jack Gould, the New York Times TV critic, to seal things. It was “further evidence that expansion of commercial TV is little more than a pipe dream.” Read more…
1) “Doc” season-finale, 9 p.m., Fox. A great first season ends powerfully. After a crash, Dr. Amy Larsen (shown here) lost eight years of memories. Now she’s learned of her son’s death, her divorce and her mistreatment of colleagues (including TJ, shown here) in the dark times that followed. Also, a colleague saddled her with guilt over his fatal error Now that peaks, amid a mass casualty. Read more…
We’re about to meet (or re-meet) two vibrant women – one famous, the other oddly obscure.
The first is the title character in “Marie Antoinette,” which starts its second season at 10 p.m. Sunday (March 23) on PBS. Marie (shown here) has a surplus of sweetness and a shortage of frugality.
And the other? Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy is another story entirely.
“I had never heard of her” before being cast to play her, Freya Mavor said. Then “I was obsessed. I read everything about her. She was just wild – a wild, wild woman.” Read more…
1) “iHeartRadio Music Awards,” 8-10 p.m., Fox. LL Cool J hosts and Billie Eilish, one of the artist-of-the-year nominees, performs. (She’s shown here in a previous concert.) So do Bad Bunny, Gracie Abrams, Kenny Chesney, GloRilla, Muni Long and more – including Nelly, who gets a special award. Also honored will be Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey and the Los Angeles firefighters. Read more…
Best-bets for June 29: The July 4th build-up begins 
Best-bets for June 28: music, young comic, old Mel 
Best-bets for June 27: Swayze, spies, soccer 
